ADG Episode 71 - Star Wars: X-Wing

[@AlexeiVoronin]

6:35 - The Y-Wing is strongly, not "poorly" shielded - that's why it's so slow and clumsy. It's the "tank" among your available ships. It can take a quite beating, but you won't be able to escape pursuit with it ;)

[@crabman3144]

I love how KZbin's automatic chapters took the combat log for the chapter names and beginnings. Automatic systems are fun sometimes.

[@60fpsOnly]

I finished this game. I seem to recall that when you fly down the deathstar trench if you turn down the graphics you have less obstacles to avoid.

[@okona1up]

Yes, that helped me through that last mission (-:

[@chrishood2883]

Hmmmm I'm not sure I like the lead indicators thing... I remember this aiming system when I was a kid, it took a while to master but one I did it was so rewarding! Also, bizarrely - I think this game actually improved my real life skills. I played this and Tie Fighter solid for years as a child, and last year I did clay pigeon shooting for the first time and absolutely dominated among other guys who had been shooting targets for decades. I'd never fired a gun. I think it's X-Wing related.

[@samtaholo]

Agreed. In games with lead indicators, I just end up chasing the lead indicator wherever it goes on the screen and not really looking at the ships anymore. It's so satisfying pulling off a manual deflection shot in X-Wing and TIE Fighter.

[@JonnyD79]

Yup played this one too back in the day. I gotta say I really liked the polygon graphics even back then but even now there's something charming about the simplicity. I don't remember much about the escort missions (this was years ago) but I do know we had a rad flight stick to play the game with. I can't even imagine trying to play this game without some kind of analog stick.

[@SamCoulson]

One of the few videos that show the Tech room. Kudos! Using as reference.

[@RadioPoultry]

The keyboard combination for roll in my version at least ('94 collector's CD-ROM) is CTRL + left and right arrow keys. I tried binding the roll to the twist-axis in my flight stick, but the problem is the keys react very slowly. I found it more convenient to roll the normal way: button 2 with stick left or right. I also tried mapping my twist-axis to button 2 and the x-axis, but that produced some weird results.

[@DFuxaPlays]

One of my favorite games, played this quite a bit.

[@jasonwinzenried1115]

later games in the series had weapon convergence. I always turned it off first thing every mission. With the x-wing, firing all four cannons at once made it a lot easier to hit those small TIEs, UNLESS convergence was on, in which case they all converged on the same small area, negating the shotgun spread approach of quad fire.

[@Up8Y]

I know it's been a few years since this episode, but you can easily find the windows release by searching for the X-Wing Collector Series bundle. It has both X-Wing and Tie Fighter for windows as well as a demo for X-Wing vs Tie Fighter. It seems to be fairly cheap as well.

[@cxk7127]

I love this game! When I first got it I was playing (poorly) with a trackball, but when I got my flight stick things changed immensely! There is one bug that I've into over the thousands of hours I've poured into this game. During some of the escort missions, the ships would hit the trigger point to jump to hyperspace and start to speed up..... then slow down, turn around and speed up again only to repeat the process. It really sucked pouring 25 or 30 minutes into a mission, taking out all enemy craft to have this loan ship not know how to fly.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

I love this game. And keep in mind - I play only with the mouse, but I've done it for so long, that I can easily rival any joystick player now. Naturally, I sucked at first. But practice makes perfect - this game is a testament to that... A bit of broken continuity here - I first played TIE Fighter before tackling X-Wing. Also, I played the CD version of X-W, but I do intend to play the floppy version as well, even though its controls are clunkier. The game is very long and sucks tons of time, but is quite rewarding, especially if you're a Star Wars nerd ;)

[@SeekerLancer]

This series is awesome. DOS gaming doesn't get nearly as much love on the net as console stuff.

[@Lovuschka]

Too bad you review no Ancient Windows Games. Would love to see Freelancer reviewed by you. :D

[@AlexeiVoronin]

16:27 - No, it doesn't. Only the DOS CD version of TIE Fighter has SVGA :)

[@pheeph]

I think I still have the floppy version around... managed to get through the first three tours... had the CH flightstick at the time I got it.

[@POLE7645]

OK. I've been trying to set my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro (old one, but the only one I could find in a store, and it seemed to work fine with Terminal Velocity), but for some reason, it seems to not work well with X-Wing. Even if I calibrate it well at the start, it always go to the upper right (and I checked at the Control Panel, so it's not the Joystick itself). And maybe I couldn't find it, but there seems to be no control option in the game itself.

[@Pixelmusement]

Go into your DOSBox config file and go to the joystick section. Whatever true/false state "timed" is set to, try the opposite.

[@MarianoDevourment]

tip: aim lead shots, where the enemy would be not where it is. S key = change shields full forwaed, centered or backwards Shift + f9 or f10 will redirect energy from laser to shield or shield to laser. The game was meant to be sim like and not an arcade shooter as rebel assault games. And that was a great decision from Lucas Arts. x wing is the second best Star wars game ever. Being the first one Tie Fighter.

[@00Resev]

You can get it on GOG as it was added recently, along with almost all other Star War related gems. Not cheap tough, but not ridiculous expensive either. www.gog.com

[@okona1up]

X Wing had a lead indicator. Just not on the main view screen. You had to activate that target screen (with i). The target shown there included the lead. However switching your eyes from the main screen to that target indicator was very tedious.

[@Pixelmusement]

+okona1up Personally, I found it WORSE trying to use that thing compared to just eye-balling it, since it doesn't move naturally. :P

[@okona1up]

I was quite useless. So I learned to lead manually.

[@JW86SH]

I believe the issues here involve a little bit of "PEBCAK"...just sayin'. I enjoyed this game, even if the turning caused the ship to rotate for no real reason...I mean, that would make sense in an airplane simulator, not a space one...lol. If it helps, try linking your lasers completely to help your aim. It's how I played it on an old Tandy with a crappy old "ball" mouse. Also, go ahead and pour everything into shields and lasers. Only pull away from those if you need the speed.

[@AlexeiVoronin]

8:19 - Disagree. I was able to beat the whole game with the mouse. I've never owned any joysticks in my whole gaming career. "Practice makes perfect."

[@bjorn-falkoandreas9472]

The original floppy version had a very tough mission. They sat you in an A-Wing and told you to defend freighters against waves of TIE-Bombers. That one took me ages. AFAIK that one got toned down a notch or two in a patch/re-release. I finished the game and all the expansions. Which to this day feels like a huge achievement. Don't try this without a CH-Flightstick. And I preferred it to TIE Fighter.

[@Art1403ccp2]

oh jeez...your gameplay was painful to watch. This game is fun...if you aren't horrible at playing it. Nice video though.

[@Pixelmusement]

Aaron Cassity Escort Missions are still universally panned as the worst kind of mission you could ever have in a game, and nearly every mission in X-Wing either starts off as, or becomes, an escort mission. :P

[@det.bullock4461]

I've had occasion to try the floppy disk version thanks to gog.com and you're right: the controls of this version are *weird*. With the CD rom version apart from the "cannot point at certain parts of the skybox" glitch the joystick is precise and buttery smooth like in Tie Fighter but in the floppy version it skips oddly like you said, playing this game at the time must have been an even worse nightmare than the CD version was.

[@tomspice73]

Now this is a tough game

[@AlexeiVoronin]

Advice: Use General MIDI for the music. It sounds great. Same applies to TIE Fighter and Dark Forces :)

[@525Lines]

There was an early version of the game that, when you picked up the box in the store, it said, "Play X-Wing."

[@deboshadow]

good old games has this and TIE fighter for download now. just a heads up for any who want to play them again.

[@metalgamerk9549]

I really like your in-depth Reviews! BUT it would be nice to have some pauses between the talking and talking and talking :). For example : when you say something about the Music or sounds in the game, paus for a moment and let us hear it. Pauses between talking makes the listener analize and soak up what you've just said :). Anyway keep up the great work with these gorgeous old dos games!

[@antdude]

Fun game, but I had no voices on my 286 due to missing EMS?

[@syn010110]

No sound.

[@thejobe100]

i was the master at this game when i was 10. i still have the floppy disk. just no floppy drive anymore haha

[@2HeadedHero]

Look up the TOPACES code ^^^Protip

[@Compucles]

As you said, there's a superior Windows version of the game, so why play the DOS version at all? (It's also one of the Windows 95/98 games that is still playable on modern Windows with needing to use any workarounds.)

[@Pixelmusement]

In my case, it's because this is Ancient "DOS" Games, so naturally I'm gonna showcase the original DOS version. That said, even though I flat out recommend playing the CD-ROM versions specifically, there are legitimate reasons for wanting to play older/lesser versions of games like these, such as for sake of nostalgia or to get it running on lesser real hardware that can't handle the later re-releases... or sometimes the only copy you actually own is the earlier release so you don't have much of a choice without resorting to less legitimate sources. :P

[@slome815]

If you are used to games like microsoft combat flight simulator, this is not such a hard game. Lead indicators are lame and ruin immersion.

[@lyianx]

I went through like 3 or 4 joysticks playing this game lol.

[@221b]

Yub yub, commander.

[@IceGeck0]

How hard you came down on the difficulty was really coming down hard on your own inability to play it.